Record company lawyers target toddler dancing to Prince on YouTube

A mother is fighting for the right to post a video of her young son dancing to
a Prince song after record company lawyers targeted her YouTube clip over
alleged copyright infringement.

1:37PM BST 09 Sep 2008

Stephanie Lenz uploaded the short film of her unnamed son to the video sharing site in February 2007.

The 29-second clip shows the toddler bouncing up and down in time to Prince's hit Let's Go Crazy while holding on to a pushchair.

He smiles as Ms Lenz asks "What do you think of the music?".

The quality of the recording is fairly poor. However, four months later Universal Music Publishing - which owns the rights to publish the song - complained, and the clip was removed.

Ms Lenz then successfully applied to have the video reinstated, triggering a lengthy legal battle in the federal courts in California.

Ms Lenz said she originally posted the clip so friends and family could see the boy's dancing.

Universal argues that it was entitled to send YouTube a takedown notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, because the use of Prince's material was "not authorised by the copyright owner".

But Ms Lenz, backed by digital rights lobby group the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is seeking a judgement that the video is covered by "fair use" provisions in copyright law, as well as unspecified damages.

"Because Universal's notice was intimidating, Ms Lenz is now fearful that someone might construe some portion of a new home video to infringe a copyright," her complaint states.

"As a result, she has not posted a single video on YouTube since she received the takedown notice."

Publicity for the case has boosted the appeal of the clip, which has now been viewed more than 593,000 times.